Monday, April 30, 2012

I woke up at an UNGODLY hour this morning -- got up, went to my trusty computer, and started looking at the various headlines -- big and small. I skimmed a few blogs. Read some opinion pieces.

Went back to bed (I can do that -- I'm old and retired).

The current level of insanity in the news -- the insane, obvious right wing lean of our "main-stream-media", the constant lies trumpeted by that same media, the false equivalency crap taking the place of reason, facts, and debate, has me beyond depressed.

No matter what the facts are -- once again they have to destroy Social Security to "save" it. They have to destroy Medicare and Medicaid to "save" them.

Carly Fiorina was on TV yesterday -- thank God Dr. Krugman was there to inject some FACTS, some REALITY, to the vapid talking point filled crap being set forth.

Our right wing repeats the same old tired things -- even AFTER they have been shown to NOT WORK. We bail them out -- and they DEMAND a return to the same old policies that DO NOT WORK. Policies that FAILED.

I've had enough for a couple of days. I can't write any more for today.

NEED AIR!! NEED some actual good news.

The "Very Serious People" n Europe have discovered austerity doesn't work -- SO, THEY DOUBLE DOWN on it. They have insane levels of unemployment in (among other places) Ireland and Spain -- so they DEMAND MORE AUSTERITY -- as their economy crumbles.

You can't make this up. You can't write a novel as absurd.

It doesn't make sense -- this "morality play" where the poor and middle class are expected to pay for the sins of the RICH!!

Ans, none of the "rich and powerful" seem to see a problem with this.

What possible endings to this can you envision? Hmmm, let's see ......................................

Sunday, April 29, 2012

This by E. L. Doctorow -- it appeared in The New York Times. READ IT. Then follow link to original
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Unexceptionalism: A Primer

By E. L. DOCTOROW

TO achieve unexceptionalism, the political ideal that would render the
United States indistinguishable from the impoverished, traditionally
undemocratic, brutal or catatonic countries of the world, do the
following:

PHASE ONE

If you’re a justice of the Supreme Court, ignore the first sacrament of a
democracy and suspend the counting of ballots in a presidential
election. Appoint the candidate of your choice as president.

If you’re the newly anointed president, react to a terrorist attack by
invading a nonterrorist country. Despite the loss or disablement of
untold numbers of lives, manage your war so that its results will be
indeterminate.

Using the state of war as justification, order secret surveillance of
American citizens, data mine their phone calls and e-mail, make
business, medical and public library records available to government
agencies, perform illegal warrantless searches of homes and offices.

Take to torturing terrorism suspects, here or abroad, in violation of
the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution, which prohibits the infliction
of cruel and unusual punishment. Unilaterally abrogate the Convention
Against Torture as well as the Geneva Conventions regarding the
treatment of prisoners of war. Commit to indeterminate detention without
trial those you decide are enemies. For good measure, trust that
legislative supporters will eventually apply this policy as well to
American citizens.

Suspend progressive taxation so that the wealthiest pay less
proportionately than the middle class. See to it that the wealth of the
country accumulates to a small fraction of the population so that the
gap between rich and poor widens exponentially.

By cutting taxes and raising wartime expenditures, deplete the national
treasury so that Congress and state and municipal legislatures cut back
on domestic services, ensuring that there will be less money for the
education of the young, for government health programs, for the care of
veterans, for the maintenance of roads and bridges, for free public
libraries, and so forth.

Deregulate the banking industry so as to create a severe recession in
which enormous numbers of people lose their homes and jobs.

Before you leave office add to the Supreme Court justices like the ones who awarded you the presidency.

PHASE TWO

If you’re one of the conservative majority of a refurbished Supreme
Court, rule that corporations, no less than human beings, have the right
under the First Amendment to express their political point of view. To
come to this judgment, do not acknowledge that corporations lack the
range of feelings or values that define what it is to be human. That
humans can act against their own interest, whereas corporations cannot
act otherwise than in their own interest. That the corporation’s only
purpose is to produce wealth, regardless of social consequences.

This decision of the court will ensure tremendous infusions of corporate
money into the political process and lead to the election in national
and state legislatures of majorities of de facto corporate lobbyists.

PHASE THREE

Given corporate control of legislative bodies, enact laws to the benefit
of corporate interests. For example, those laws sponsored by weapons
manufacturers wherein people may carry concealed weapons and shoot and
kill anyone by whom they feel threatened.

Give the running of state prisons over to private corporations whose
profits increase with the increase in inmate populations. See to it that
a majority of prisoners are African-American.

When possible, treat immigrants as criminals.

Deplete and underfinance a viable system of free public schools and give
the education of children over to private for-profit corporations.

Make college education unaffordable.

Inject religious precepts into public policy so as to control women’s bodies.

Propagandize against scientific facts that would affect corporate
profits. Portray global warming as a conspiracy of scientists.

Having subverted the Constitution and enervated the nation with these
measures, portray the federal government as unwieldy, bumbling and shot
through with elitist liberals. Create mental states of maladaptive
populism among the citizenry to support this view.

PHASE FOUR

If you’re a justice of the Supreme Court, decide that the police of any
and all cities and towns and villages have the absolute authority to
strip-search any person whom they, for whatever reason, put under
arrest.

With this ruling, the reduction of America to unexceptionalism is complete

4/25/2012

In Brief: Mitt Romney Is Breathtakingly Vile:
Describing his successful business career at Bain & Company and Bain
Capital last night after winning who the fuck cares which primaries,
Mitt Romney said,
"I became successful by helping start a business that grew from 10
people to hundreds of people." That was actually Bain Capital, which he
founded with other rich prickfaces. After once again listing the few
companies we've heard of that were successes once Bain came in, Romney
continued, "I’d tell you that not every business made it and there were
good days and bad days, but every day was a lesson."

"Huh," the Rude Pundit thought. "I wonder which day
or which business he was talking about." Was it Georgetown Steel in
South Carolina, which was gutted by Bain once it took over, with
managers "replaced by people who knew nothing of steel," with equipment
upgrades avoided, with union benefits cut, which was fine for making the
quick buck Bain wanted it to make so it could look better on paper and
be sold, but not so good for making, you know, steel products, and
Georgetown was driven into bankruptcy.

Or was it a bad day when a Bain-run corporation bought a paper plant in
Marion, Indiana, in 1994 and immediately fired everyone who worked there
and forced them to reapply for their jobs "at lower wages and a 50
percent cut in health-care benefits"? When the workers striked, Bain
closed it down and shipped the jobs to Mexico. Was that a bad day or a
good day? It's hard to tell. Probably both, depending on where your
paycheck was at the end of it.

Was it a bad day when Bain's management, specifically Romney's, created
the financial situation that forced a Kansas City steel mill to close
after 100 years in business, with 750 people losing their jobs and the
pension fund shorted by $44 million? Or maybe ask the 1700 workers laid
off from Dade International in Illinois after Bain took over?

The thing that President Obama needs to keep in mind about Mitt Romney
is that he is a ruthless, amoral son of a bitch. Like Bain Capital, he
makes promises that are lies when they get in the way of his greater
good or his bottom line. With his polished smile and primped hair,
Romney is one of the most outright depraved and evil sociopaths ever to
run for office, and that's including Richard Nixon and Pat Robertson.

Beware the man who presents himself as honorable when his actions have demonstrated nothing but disgrace.

So, I'm putting up some music and I said -- "I love Sonny (Stitt), even though he's dead". Of course, my partner commented -- "He hasn't had any new albums recently. I think Tupac has, and Jimmy is putting out a new one - I heard."

That's the way it is -- there's new Bird, New Coltrane, new damn near everyone dead coming out on a regular basis.

Stuff found here and there. Live concerts folks forgot were recorded - suddenly discovered. Some of it is GREAT stuff, some is crap -- but it gets released. So, we have long dead artists releasing "new" material.

There are times I'm thankful, and times I think it weird. No matter -- if they find some new Bird -- I'll most likely buy it.

Palm Desert National Bank, Palm Desert, California, was closed today
by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), which appointed
the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as receiver. To
protect the depositors, the FDIC entered into a purchase and assumption
agreement with Pacific Premier Bank, Costa Mesa, to assume all of the
deposits of Palm Desert National Bank.
The sole branch of Palm Desert National Bank will reopen on Monday
as a branch of Pacific Premier Bank. Depositors of Palm Desert National
Bank will automatically become depositors of Pacific Premier Bank.
Deposits will continue to be insured by the FDIC, so there is no need
for customers to change their banking relationship in order to retain
their deposit insurance coverage up to applicable limits. Customers of
Palm Desert National Bank should continue to use their existing branch
until they receive notice from Pacific Premier Bank that it has
completed systems changes to allow other Pacific Premier Bank branches
to process their accounts as well.
This evening and over the weekend, depositors of Palm Desert
National Bank can access their money by writing checks or using ATM or
debit cards. Checks drawn on the bank will continue to be processed.
Loan customers should continue to make their payments as usual.
As of December 31, 2011, Palm Desert National Bank had approximately
$125.8 million in total assets and $122.8 million in total deposits.
In addition to assuming all of the deposits of the failed bank, Pacific
Premier Bank agreed to purchase essentially all of the assets.
Customers with questions about today's transaction should call the
FDIC toll-free at 1-800-591-2820. The phone number will be operational
this evening until 9:00 p.m., Pacific Daylight Time (PDT); on Saturday
from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., PDT; on Sunday from noon to 6:00 p.m., PDT;
on Monday from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., PDT; and thereafter from 9:00 a.m. to
5:00 p.m., PDT. Interested parties also can visit the FDIC's Web site
at http://www.fdic.gov/bank/individual/failed/palmdesert.html.
The FDIC estimates that the cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF)
will be $20.1 million. Compared to other alternatives, Pacific Premier
Bank's acquisition was the least costly resolution for the FDIC's DIF.
Palm Desert National Bank is the 22nd FDIC-insured institution to fail
in the nation this year, and the first in California. The last
FDIC-insured institution closed in the state was Citizens Bank of
Northern California, Nevada City, on September 23, 2011.

Plantation Federal Bank, Pawleys Island, South Carolina, was closed today by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), which appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as receiver. To protect the depositors, the FDIC entered into a purchase and assumption agreement with First Federal Bank (formerly known as First Federal Savings and Loan Association of Charleston), Charleston, South Carolina, to assume all of the deposits of Plantation Federal Bank.
The six branches of Plantation Federal Bank will reopen on Monday as branches of First Federal Bank, including the three branches operating under the name of First Savers Bank. Depositors of Plantation Federal Bank will automatically become depositors of First Federal Bank. Deposits will continue to be insured by the FDIC, so there is no need for customers to change their banking relationship in order to retain their deposit insurance coverage up to applicable limits. Customers of Plantation Federal Bank should continue to use their existing branch until they receive notice from First Federal Bank that it has completed systems changes to allow other First Federal Bank branches to process their accounts as well.
This evening and over the weekend, depositors of Plantation Federal Bank can access their money by writing checks or using ATM or debit cards. Checks drawn on the bank will continue to be processed. Loan customers should continue to make their payments as usual.
As of December 31, 2011, Plantation Federal Bank had approximately $486.4 million in total assets and $440.5 million in total deposits. In addition to assuming all of the deposits of the failed bank, First Federal Bank agreed to purchase essentially all of the assets.
The FDIC and First Federal Bank entered into a loss-share transaction on $221.7 million of Plantation Federal Bank's assets. First Federal Bank will share in the losses on the asset pools covered under the loss-share agreement. The loss-share transaction is projected to maximize returns on the assets covered by keeping them in the private sector. The transaction also is expected to minimize disruptions for loan customers. For more information on loss share, please visit: http://www.fdic.gov/bank/individual/failed/lossshare/index.html.
Customers with questions about today's transaction should call the FDIC toll-free at 1-800-640-2538. The phone number will be operational this evening until 9:00 p.m., Eastern Daylight Time (EDT); on Saturday from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., EDT; on Sunday from noon to 6:00 p.m., EDT; on Monday from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., EDT; and thereafter from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., EDT. Interested parties also can visit the FDIC's Web site at http://www.fdic.gov/bank/individual/failed/plantation.html.
The FDIC estimates that the cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) will be $76.0 million. Compared to other alternatives, First Federal Bank's acquisition was the least costly resolution for the FDIC's DIF. Plantation Federal Bank is the 21st FDIC-insured institution to fail in the nation this year, and the first in South Carolina. The last FDIC-insured institution closed in the state was BankMeridian, N.A., Columbia, on July 29, 2011.

Inter Savings Bank, fsb D/B/A InterBank, fsb, Maple Grove, Minnesota,
was closed today by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency
(OCC), which appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)
as receiver. To protect the depositors, the FDIC entered into a
purchase and assumption agreement with Great Southern Bank, Reeds
Spring, Missouri, to assume all of the deposits of InterBank, fsb.
The four branches of InterBank, fsb will reopen on Monday as
branches of Great Southern Bank. Depositors of InterBank, fsb will
automatically become depositors of Great Southern Bank. Deposits will
continue to be insured by the FDIC, so there is no need for customers to
change their banking relationship in order to retain their deposit
insurance coverage up to applicable limits. Customers of InterBank, fsb
should continue to use their existing branch until they receive notice
from Great Southern Bank that it has completed systems changes to allow
other Great Southern Bank branches to process their accounts as well.
This evening and over the weekend, depositors of InterBank, fsb can
access their money by writing checks or using ATM or debit cards.
Checks drawn on the bank will continue to be processed. Loan customers
should continue to make their payments as usual.
As of December 31, 2011, InterBank, fsb had approximately $481.6
million in total assets and $473.0 million in total deposits. In
addition to assuming all of the deposits of the failed bank, Great
Southern Bank agreed to purchase essentially all of the assets.
The FDIC and Great Southern Bank entered into a loss-share
transaction on $413.0 million of InterBank, fsb's assets. Great
Southern Bank will share in the losses on the asset pools covered under
the loss-share agreement. The loss-share transaction is projected to
maximize returns on the assets covered by keeping them in the private
sector. The transaction also is expected to minimize disruptions for
loan customers. For more information on loss share, please visit: http://www.fdic.gov/bank/individual/failed/lossshare/index.html.
Customers with questions about today's transaction should call the
FDIC toll-free at 1-800-405-8357. The phone number will be operational
this evening until 9:00 p.m., Central Daylight Time (CDT); on Saturday
from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., CDT; on Sunday from noon to 6:00 p.m., CDT;
on Monday from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., CDT; and thereafter from 9:00 a.m. to
5:00 p.m., CDT. Interested parties also can visit the FDIC's Web site
at http://www.fdic.gov/bank/individual/failed/Interbank.html.
The FDIC estimates that the cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF)
will be $117.5 million. Compared to other alternatives, Great Southern
Bank's acquisition was the least costly resolution for the FDIC's DIF.
InterBank, fsb is the 20th FDIC-insured institution to fail in the
nation this year, and the third in Minnesota. The last FDIC-insured
institution closed in the state was Home Savings of America, Little
Falls, on February 24, 2012.

HarVest Bank of Maryland, Gaithersburg, Maryland, was closed today by
the Maryland Commissioner of Financial Regulation, which appointed the
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as receiver. To protect
the depositors, the FDIC entered into a purchase and assumption
agreement with Sonabank, McLean, Virginia, to assume all of the deposits
of HarVest Bank of Maryland.
The four branches of HarVest Bank of Maryland will reopen during
normal business hours as branches of Sonabank. Depositors of HarVest
Bank of Maryland will automatically become depositors of Sonabank.
Deposits will continue to be insured by the FDIC, so there is no need
for customers to change their banking relationship in order to retain
their deposit insurance coverage up to applicable limits. Customers of
HarVest Bank of Maryland should continue to use their existing branch
until they receive notice from Sonabank that it has completed systems
changes to allow other Sonabank branches to process their accounts as
well.
This evening and over the weekend, depositors of HarVest Bank of
Maryland can access their money by writing checks or using ATM or debit
cards. Checks drawn on the bank will continue to be processed. Loan
customers should continue to make their payments as usual.
As of December 31, 2011, HarVest Bank of Maryland had approximately
$164.3 million in total assets and $145.5 million in total deposits.
In addition to assuming all of the deposits of the failed bank, Sonabank
agreed to purchase essentially all of the assets.
Customers with questions about today's transaction should call the
FDIC toll-free at 1-800-523-8275. The phone number will be operational
this evening until 9:00 p.m., Eastern Daylight Time (EDT); on Saturday
from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., EDT; on Sunday from noon to 6:00 p.m., EDT;
on Monday from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., EDT; and thereafter from 9:00 a.m. to
5:00 p.m., EDT. Interested parties also can visit the FDIC's Web site at
http://www.fdic.gov/bank/individual/failed/harvest.html.
The FDIC estimates that the cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF)
will be $17.2 million. Compared to other alternatives, Sonabank's
acquisition was the least costly resolution for the FDIC's DIF. HarVest
Bank of Maryland is the 19th FDIC-insured institution to fail in the
nation this year, and the second in Maryland. The last FDIC-insured
institution closed in the state was Bank of the Eastern Shore,
Cambridge, earlier today.

Bank of the Eastern Shore, Cambridge, Maryland was closed today by
the Maryland Commissioner of Financial Regulation, which appointed
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as receiver. To protect
the depositors, the FDIC created the Deposit Insurance National Bank of
Eastern Shore (DINB), which will remain open until May 25, 2012 to allow
depositors access to their insured deposits and time to open accounts
at other insured institutions.
At the time of closing, the receiver immediately transferred to the
DINB all insured deposits of Bank of the Eastern Shore, except for
brokered deposits, certificates of deposits (CDs) and individual
retirement accounts (IRAs). The receiver also transferred to the DINB
all secured deposits by public entities.
The FDIC will mail checks directly to customers with CDs and IRAs.
For the brokered deposit customers, the FDIC will pay the brokers
directly for the amount of their insured funds. Customers with brokered
deposits should contact their brokers directly for information
concerning their money.
The main office and all branches of Bank of the Eastern Shore will
reopen on Monday, April 30, 2012. The DINB will maintain Bank of the
Eastern Shore's normal business hours thereafter, until May 25, 2012.
Banking activities, such as writing checks and using ATM and debit
cards, can continue normally for former customers of Bank of the Eastern
Shore until May 14, 2012. Direct Deposit, however, will end on May 18,
2012. Bank of the Eastern Shore official checks will continue to clear
and will be issued to customers closing accounts.
All insured depositors of Bank of the Eastern Shore are encouraged
to transfer their insured funds to other banks during this transitional
period. They may do so by asking their new bank to electronically
transfer their deposits from the DINB or by writing checks for the
amount in their accounts. For depositors who have not closed or
transferred their accounts on or before May 25, 2012, the FDIC will mail
checks to the address of record for the amount of the insured funds.
Under the FDI Act, the FDIC may create a deposit insurance national
bank to ensure that depositors have continued access to their insured
funds where no other bank has agreed to assume the insured deposits.
This arrangement allows for uninterrupted direct deposits and automated
payments from customers' accounts and allows them time to find another
institution with which to do business.
As of December 31, 2011, Bank of the Eastern Shore had $166.7
million in total assets and $154.5 million in total deposits. At the
time of closing, the amount of deposits exceeding the insurance limits
were undetermined. Uninsured deposits were not transferred to the DINB.
The amount of uninsured deposits will be determined once the FDIC
obtains additional information from those customers.
Customers with accounts in excess of $250,000 should contact the
FDIC toll-free at 1-800-591-2817 to set up an appointment to discuss
their deposits. The phone number will be operational this evening until
9:00 p.m., Eastern Daylight Time (EDT); on Saturday from 9:00 a.m. to
6:00 p.m., EDT; on Sunday from noon to 6:00 p.m., EDT; on Monday from
8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., EDT; and thereafter from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.,
EDT. Customers who would like more information on today's transaction
should visit the FDIC's Web site at http://www.fdic.gov/bank/individual/failed/easternshore.html.
Beginning Monday, depositors of Bank of the Eastern Shore with more
than $250,000 at the bank may visit the FDIC's Web page "Is My Account
Fully Insured?" at http://www2.fdic.gov/dip/Index.asp to determine their insurance coverage.
The FDIC as receiver will retain all the assets from Bank of the
Eastern Shore for later disposition. Loan customers should continue to
make their payments as usual.
The cost to the FDIC's Deposit Insurance Fund is estimated to be
$41.8 million. Bank of the Eastern Shore is the 18th FDIC-insured
institution to fail in the nation this year, and the first in Maryland.
The last FDIC-insured institution closed in the state was K Bank,
Randallstown, on November 5, 2010.

Here's a little something from "The Root" - please follow link to original.

Once again, Florida seems to lead in OVERT racism of the kind that KILLS PEOPLE.

Anyone saying we are a "post-racial" society has blinders on, AND rocks in their head.

I guess the Klan is gone -- now they are called "Republicans".
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Florida Burned Bodies Identified

ABC News is reporting that authorities have identified two bodies
found burning along a popular bike trail as two Florida high school
students. Originally brought to authorities' attention by a bicyclist
who discovered them, they have been identified as 16-year-old Nicholas
Presha and 18-year-old Jeremy Stewart, who were reportedly best friends.
The incident is being called a double homicide.
From ABC News:Two bicyclists out for an early morning ride in Florida made a
gruesome discovery when a fire turned out to be two burning bodies.
Police have now disclosed that the victims were two young men.The Orange County Sheriff's Office received a call at 6:41 a.m.
on Sunday about a fire that had been spotted on Cady Way Trail on a
grassy hill beside a small wooden bridge. The trail is often used by
bicyclists and walkers."The caller(s) were using the trail when they came upon the fire
and the realization that it could be two bodies within the flames," the
sheriff's office said in a news release.Firefighters and sheriff's deputies responded to the scene and confirmed that two bodies were being burned.Authorities are classifying the incident as a double homicide.
Orange County Sheriff's Capt. Angelo Nieves said the victims were "two
young males," but said that no positive identification has been made
yet.
Investigators are asking anyone who has heard anything about the
crimes or who may have seen something to call Crimeline at 407-423-TIPS.

It's a good day to go to "Some Assembly Required" -- as usual, here are a few tidbits from yesterday and today. Have fun!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Reprint:“Thus
did a handful of rapacious citizens come to control all that was worth
controlling in America. Thus was the savage and stupid and entirely
inappropriate and unnecessary and humorless American class system
created. Honest, industrious, peaceful citizens were classed as
bloodsuckers, if they asked to be paid a living wage. And they saw that
praise was reserved henceforth for those who devised means of getting
paid enormously for committing crimes against which no laws had been
passed. Thus the American dream turned belly up, turned green, bobbed to
the scummy surface of cupidity unlimited, filled with gas, went bang in
the noonday sun.” Kurt Vonnegut

A Giant Step For Stupidity:
Jerome Corsi's new book, “The Great Oil Conspiracy: How the U.S.
Government Hid the Nazi Discovery of Abiotic Oil from the American
People”claims that all that oil was created abioticly - how, he asks,
did those dinosaurs get buried tens of thousands of feet below the
surface? Never mind that oil was formed from algae in the shallow seas
of the Cretaceous and Jurassic, not from dinosaurs and that the process
is well understood. That's science. We want bread and circuses.

The Gift That Keeps On Giving:
Nearly all of the 10,893 spent fuel assemblies stored at the Fukushima
complex sit in pools - many 100 feet above ground and now open to the
atmosphere - that are vulnerable to future earthquakes, tusnami, loss of
water, or simple bad luck. They hold about 85 times the long-lived
radioactive material than was released at Chernobyl.

Warm-up Question:
Why hasn't the closing of 40 predominantly black public schools in
Philadelphia made the national news? Beyond the obvious racial
explanation, there's also a story here about bribery, politics and
charter schools. The fix has been in for a long time, and not just in
Philadelphia. (Go ahead, Google charter schools + Bush + Florida...)

Guarding The Guards, Part II:
In a case of dereliction of duty far worse than getting laid in their
off-duty time, TSA guardians have been charged with taking bribes to
allow drug smugglers through airport screening. As TSA and Homeland
Security continue to insert themselves in our everyday activities,
expect more such stories.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Death of a Fairy Tale

For the past two years most policy makers in Europe and many politicians
and pundits in America have been in thrall to a destructive economic
doctrine. According to this doctrine, governments should respond to a
severely depressed economy not the way the textbooks say they should —
by spending more to offset falling private demand — but with fiscal
austerity, slashing spending in an effort to balance their budgets.

Critics warned from the beginning that austerity in the face of
depression would only make that depression worse. But the “austerians”
insisted that the reverse would happen. Why? Confidence!
“Confidence-inspiring policies will foster and not hamper economic
recovery,” declared Jean-Claude Trichet, the former president of the
European Central Bank — a claim echoed by Republicans in Congress here.
Or as I put it way back when, the idea was that the confidence fairy
would come in and reward policy makers for their fiscal virtue.

The good news is that many influential people are finally admitting that
the confidence fairy was a myth. The bad news is that despite this
admission there seems to be little prospect of a near-term course change
either in Europe or here in America, where we never fully embraced the
doctrine, but have, nonetheless, had de facto austerity in the form of
huge spending and employment cuts at the state and local level.

So, about that doctrine: appeals to the wonders of confidence are
something Herbert Hoover would have found completely familiar — and
faith in the confidence fairy has worked out about as well for modern
Europe as it did for Hoover’s America. All around Europe’s periphery,
from Spain to Latvia, austerity policies have produced Depression-level
slumps and Depression-level unemployment; the confidence fairy is
nowhere to be seen, not even in Britain, whose turn to austerity two
years ago was greeted with loud hosannas by policy elites on both sides
of the Atlantic.

None of this should come as news, since the failure of austerity
policies to deliver as promised has long been obvious. Yet European
leaders spent years in denial, insisting that their policies would start
working any day now, and celebrating supposed triumphs on the flimsiest
of evidence. Notably, the long-suffering (literally) Irish have been
hailed as a success story not once but twice, in early 2010 and again in
the fall of 2011. Each time the supposed success turned out to be a
mirage; three years into its austerity program, Ireland has yet to show
any sign of real recovery from a slump that has driven the unemployment
rate to almost 15 percent.

However, something has changed in the past few weeks. Several events —
the collapse of the Dutch government over proposed austerity measures,
the strong showing of the vaguely anti-austerity François Hollande in
the first round of France’s presidential election, and an economic
report showing that Britain is doing worse in the current slump than it
did in the 1930s — seem to have finally broken through the wall of
denial. Suddenly, everyone is admitting that austerity isn’t working.

The question now is what they’re going to do about it. And the answer, I fear, is: not much.

For one thing, while the austerians seem to have given up on hope, they
haven’t given up on fear — that is, on the claim that if we don’t slash
spending, even in a depressed economy, we’ll turn into Greece, with
sky-high borrowing costs.

Now, claims that only austerity can pacify bond markets have proved
every bit as wrong as claims that the confidence fairy will bring
prosperity. Almost three years have passed since The Wall Street Journal
breathlessly warned that the attack of the bond vigilantes on U.S. debt
had begun; not only have borrowing costs remained low, they’ve actually
fallen by half. Japan has faced dire warnings about its debt for more
than a decade; as of this week, it could borrow long term at an interest
rate of less than 1 percent.

And serious analysts now argue that fiscal austerity in a depressed
economy is probably self-defeating: by shrinking the economy and hurting
long-term revenue, austerity probably makes the debt outlook worse
rather than better.

But while the confidence fairy appears to be well and truly buried,
deficit scare stories remain popular. Indeed, defenders of British
policies dismiss any call for a rethinking of these policies, despite
their evident failure to deliver, on the grounds that any relaxation of
austerity would cause borrowing costs to soar.

So we’re now living in a world of zombie economic policies — policies
that should have been killed by the evidence that all of their premises
are wrong, but which keep shambling along nonetheless. And it’s anyone’s
guess when this reign of error will end.

Thursday, April 26, 2012
What are the three demographic groups whose
electoral impact is growing fastest? Hispanics, women, and young people.
Who are Republicans pissing off the most? Latinos, women, and young
people.
It’s almost as if the GOP can’t help itself.
Start with Hispanic voters, whose electoral heft keeps growing as
they comprise an ever-larger portion of the electorate. Hispanics now
favor President Obama over Romney by more than two to one, according to a
recent Pew poll.
The movement of Hispanics into the Democratic camp has been going on
for decades. What are Republicans doing to woo them back? Replicating
California Republican Governor Pete Wilson’s disastrous support almost
twenty years ago for Proposition 187 – which would have screened out
undocumented immigrants from public schools, health care, and other
social services, and required law-enforcement officials to report any
“suspected” illegals. (Wilson, you may remember, lost that year’s
election, and California’s Republican Party has never recovered.)
The Arizona law now before the Supreme Court – sponsored by
Republicans in the state and copied by Republican legislators and
governors in several others – would authorize police to stop anyone
looking Hispanic and demand proof of citizenship. It’s nativism
disguised as law enforcement.
Romney is trying to distance himself from that law, but it’s not
working. That may be because he dubbed it a “model law” during
February’s Republican primary debate in Arizona, and because its author
(former state senator Russell Pearce, who was ousted in a special
election last November largely by angry Hispanic voters) says he’s
working closely with Romney advisers.
Hispanics are also reacting to Romney’s attack just a few months ago
on GOP rival Texas Governor Rick Perry for supporting in-state tuition
at the University of Texas for children of undocumented immigrants. And
to Romney’s advocacy of what he calls “self-deportation” – making life
so difficult for undocumented immigrants and their families that they
choose to leave.
As if all this weren’t enough, the GOP has been pushing voter ID laws
all over America, whose obvious aim is to intimidate Hispanic voters so
they won’t come to the polls. But they may have the opposite effect –
emboldening the vast majority of ethnic Hispanics, who are American
citizens, to vote in even greater numbers and lend even more support to
Obama and other Democrats.
Or consider women – whose political and economic impact in America
continues to grow (women are fast becoming better educated than men and
the major breadwinners in American homes). The political gender gap is
huge. According to recent polls, women prefer Obama to Romney by over 20 percent.
So what is the GOP doing to woo women back? Attacking them. Last
February, House Republicans voted to cut off funding to Planned
Parenthood. Last May, they unanimously passed the “No Taxpayer Funding
for Abortion Act,” banning the District of Columbia from funding
abortions for low-income women. (The original version removed all
exceptions – rape, incest, and endangerment to a mother’s life – except
“forcible” rape.)
Earlier this year Republican legislators in Virginia, Pennsylvania,
Idaho, and Alabama pushed bills requiring women seeking abortions to
undergo invasive vaginal ultrasound tests (Pennsylvania Republicans even
wanted proof such had viewed the images).
Republican legislators in Georgia and Arizona passed bills banning
most abortions after twenty weeks of pregnancy. The Georgia bill would
also require that any abortion after 20 weeks be done in a way to bring
the fetus out alive. Republican legislators in Texas have voted to
eliminate funding for any women’s healthcare clinic with an affiliation
to an abortion provider – even if the affiliation is merely a shared
name, employee, or board member.
All told, over 400 Republican bills are pending in state legislatures, attacking womens’ reproductive rights.
But even this doesn’t seem enough for the GOP. Republicans in
Wisconsin just repealed a law designed to prevent employers from
discriminating against women.
Or, finally, consider students – a significant and growing electoral
force, who voted overwhelmingly for Obama in 2008. What are Republicans
doing to woo them back? Attack them, of course.
Republican Budget Chair Paul Ryan’s budget plan – approved by almost
every House Republican and enthusiastically endorsed by Mitt Romney –
allows rates on student loans to double on July 1 – from 3.4 percent to
6.8 percent. That will add an average of $1,000 a year to student debt
loads, which already exceed credit-card debt.
House Republicans say America can’t afford the $6 billion a year it
would require to keep student loan rates down to where they are now. But
that same Republican plan gives wealthy Americans trillions of dollars
in tax cuts over the next decade. (Under mounting political pressure,
House Republicans have come up with just enough money to keep the loan
program going for another year – safely past Election Day – by raiding a
fund established for preventive care in the new health-care act.)
Here again, Romney is trying to tiptoe away from the GOP position. He
now says he supports keeping student loans where they were. Yet only a
few months ago he argued that subsidized student loans were bad because
they encouraged colleges to raise their tuition.
How can a political party be so dumb as to piss off Hispanics, women,
and young people? Because the core of its base is middle-aged white men
– and it doesn’t seem to know how to satisfy its base without at the
same time turning off everyone who’s not white, male, and middle-aged.

It seems some folks still believe the crap about "the wisdom of the east". A place where slavery, caste systems, extreme poverty, massive extremes of wealth, etc., etc., etc., still exist, and have forever.

I firmly believe the "eastern religions", and "eastern spirituality" are just alternative ways to control the masses. Just ways for poor folks to accept the status quo. CASTES!! After that there is nothing more to say.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Woman starves to death on ill-conceived sunlight-only diet

​A Swiss woman managed to starve herself to death after trying to follow a sunlight-only diet, after watching a documentary of an Indian guru who claimed to live this way for 70 years. Well, someone was lying and, no offense gurus, but obviously you CANNOT live on just sunlight alone. If you don't believe that, then look into the millions of people who die of starvation and thirst every year. Unfortunately, wanna-be ascetics have been dying of an inability to put two and two (food + water = alive!) together in Germany, Britain and Australia according to the Swiss paper Tages-Anzeiger, but for this woman to starve in Switzerland, home to some of the best cheese and chocolate in the world, just seems exceptionally unnecessary.

No one seems to mind the current "security state" until THEY are impacted by it. This also from "The Gothamist" -- please follow link to original
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

A TSA agent at JFK "started screaming at me and cursing me and
threatening me," says a Long Island man who used his cell phone to
videotape what he describes as an unnecessarily "aggressive" security
screening of his developmentally disabled daughter. Dr. Joshua Frank, a
Long Island pediatrician, is the father of Dina Frank, a girl with
cerebral palsy who walks with crutches and leg braces. She can't pass
through metal detectors for this reason, and is usually patted down by
security agents, a procedure that frightens her. And the Frank family tells The Daily that on Monday the procedure was particularly harrowing.
“They still attack her like she’s Osama bin Laden,” Dina's mother
tells says. On Monday, the family missed their flight to Florida because
the TSA decided that Dina had to go through security twice—because
procedures weren't followed properly the first time. During their first
pass, a female TSA screener allegedly screamed at Dr. Frank when he
started documenting what he perceived to be an "exceptionally
aggressive" pat-down. Ultimately, a supervisor intervened, and after an
inspection of Dina’s crutches the family was allowed to proceed to their
gate.But
after the family had spent an hour at the gate waiting for their
flight, the TSA screeners returned and said Dina had to be screened
again. “So then I got aggravated,” Dr. Frank tells The Daily.
He put Dina in a wheelchair and raced her back to the gate, but by the
time she passed through security a second time, they'd missed their
flight. On the plus side, countless lives were saved because the TSA
thwarted little Dina's dastardly plan to hijack the plane and fly it to
the American Girl doll headquarters.
“They have to do this in a more humane manner. I feel their screeners
are amateur. I feel like they’re unprofessional,” Dr. Frank told CBS 2. “The fact that they consider her walking devices and her cane to be a suspicious device, that’s treating her like a terrorist.” In
an attempt to avoid controversies like this, the TSA recently
introduced a TSA Cares hotline, a dedicated resource for passengers with
medical conditions, disabilities or other circumstances or their loved
ones who want to prepare for the screening process prior to flying.
The TSA insists they simply followed protocol. Spokeswoman Lisa
Farbstein tells us, "A TSA manager determined that a TSA officer did not
complete the screening procedure on the child. When the checkpoint
manager learned that the screening was not completed, TSA officers went
to the gate and offered to conduct a modified pat-down at the gate, or
back at the checkpoint, where there is a separate screening room for
privacy. The family ultimately returned to the checkpoint to complete
the screening process."

I have not watched any hockey for almost 40 years. I did go to the Garden to watch the "couldn't quite get over the hump" Rangers lose. I also watched The New York Islanders when they were on their great Stanley Cup run.

After that, even though the great Gretsky was AMAZING to watch, I lost interest in the game.

So, it was with great surprise I read the following in "The Gothamist" - DC Edition -- (as always, follow link to original)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Last night, Capitals fans were exuberant when Joel Ward scored the
game-winning goal to clinch the team's first-round playoff series with
the defending Stanley Cup champion Boston Bruins. And it didn't take
long for many to notice that Ward, playing his first season with the
Capitals, is one of a small number of black professional hockey players.
Some celebrating the Caps' victory pointed to that proudly, if a bit awkwardly:

Meanwhile, on the ice in Boston's TD Garden, the Bruins and Capitals
were cordial in congratulating each other on a well-fought series.
Unfortunately, not all of the Bruins' fans took the loss that well.
In fact, some Boston fans, armed with Twitter accounts, unleashed a
flurry of obscenely racist statements about Ward, born in Toronto to
Barbadian parents, and the color of his skin. The website Black Sports
Online caught note, and archived many of the hate-fueled messages. Warning: The tweets, some of which are presented below, contain repeated use of racial slurs and other vulgarities:

The jarring nature of these tweets is shocking enough. One hopes it
represents only a small fraction of the Bruins' fan base. But sadly,
what should have been remembered as one of the most gripping playoff
series in recent years, will instead by chalked up as yet another
chapter in the sorry racial history of the Boston sporting scene.
The so-called Hub of the Universe might appear to be a nest of
progressivism, but on the sporting field, Boston has been perhaps more
closed-minded than any other professional sports town. The Red Sox were
the last Major League Baseball team to sign a black player. Pumpsie
Green, a backup infielder, joined the Red Sox in 1959, a full 12 years
after Jackie Robinson broke baseball's color barrier. (Incidentally, it
was the Bruins who signed the NHL's first black player, Willie O'Ree,
who played 43 games in the 1960-1961 season.)
Well into the 1980s, the Red Sox's black players faced segregation from their white teammates. A 2007 story in Boston magazine recounting the city's long struggle with race and sports featured an incident that ultimately cost one player, Tommy Harper, a coaching job with the Red Sox after he retired:

Red Sox outfielder Tommy Harper had an experience similar to
Jones’s. In 1973, during spring training in Winter Haven, Florida, he
and other black players were not invited to dinners his white teammates
attended at a segregated local club. Twelve years later, while working
as a member of the Sox coaching staff, he described the incident to the
Globe. Within a year he was fired. He eventually brought a
discrimination lawsuit against the club that resulted in a settlement.
Not long afterward, Jim Rice—for years the lone black Sox
player—supposedly told a young Ellis Burks to leave the city as fast as
he could.

Over the years, many of baseball's greatest players refused to play
for the Red Sox, according to the article, including Ken Griffey Jr.,
Albert Belle, David Justice, Tim Raines, Dave Winfield and Gary
Sheffield
The article also extends the pattern to the Celtics, who under Red
Auerbach were one of the first NBA teams to feature black players. Bill
Russell recounted an incident in which vandals broke into his home in
order to defecate on his bed. Russell, one of the NBA's all-time greats,
has called Boston a "flea market of racism."
And the tweeted epithets about Ward aren't even the first instance of
Boston-bred racism impacting the D.C. sporting scene. Until the 1932
season, the NFL featured a handful of black players. By the following
year, it was an all-white league. The difference? The establishment of
the Boston Redskins by George Preston Marshall, who despite his ability
to manage a team to victory, expunged the league of its black players in
hopes of expanding what was then a northeastern and midwestern sport
into the segregated south. It wasn't until 1962 that the Redskins, by
then having moved here, finally signed their first black player, but it
was only under duress after Interior Secretary Stewart Udall told the
team that unless they integrated—well more than a decade after the rest
of the NFL—they would lose their lease on D.C. Stadium (now RFK
Stadium). The Redskins' troubled history, born in Boston, is one reason there is a proliferation of Dallas Cowboys fans in Washington.
Getting back to the Tweets directed at Ward, some see them less as a
reaction toward the game-winning goal and more a reflection of recent
political trends, specifically the rise of the Tea Party. The Bruins'
goalie, Tim Thomas, is every bit the small-government enthusiast, once
even wearing the Gadsden flag on his helment. In January, he was the lone member of his team to bail on the customary White House visit awarded to major sports champions, and last week, on an off day in Washington, he visited the offices of Freedom Works, a leading Tea Party group.Speaking to The Nation's Dave Zirin,
Howard Bryant of ESPN suggested that Thomas' apparent support for the
Tea Party, a movement that sometimes features nativist overtones, gave
agency to behavior we'd rather forget:

“The goal itself wasn't particularly important.
[Barbadian-Canadian] Anson Carter was a Boston playoff hero during the
1999 playoffs. The significance of Ward's goal is that the man he beat,
Tim Thomas, has through his thinly veiled racism undermined what should
be a glorious revival of hockey in Boston. In turn, he encouraged the
revival of an attitude that people wanted to think was out of fashion. I
don't care if it was a lunatic fringe or a larger portion of the
Bruins' fan base, but Thomas by himself turned new Boston into old
Boston, and the embarrassing fan response to Ward's goal proved it.”

As I wrote at the top, one hopes those awful tweets were the thoughts
of a slim minority. Of course, as Zirin writes, racism is not strictly a
Boston thing, it's a sad reality everywhere. Instead of celebrating an unlikely hero's late-game feats,
we're served up with a disturbing reminder that despite more than a
half-century's worth of progress, we've still got a long way to go.
Ward, for his part, told USA Today
that while the tweets were "shocking to see," they "didn't ruin my
day." He's doing what he should—concentrating about the next round of
the playoffs.
And to blame Thomas' politics on the outbursts, as Bryant hints at,
seems a bit thin. Thomas' concerns about the scope of government or his
demurral from the White House were not a factor in the behavior he
showed in defeat last night. He, and the rest of the Bruins, showed
nothing but class in their congratulations to the Capitals and in their
postgame comments.
If only their fans were half as gracious.

It is Thursday. "Thor's Day". It seems our days of the week are named after PAGAN GODS!! Why hasn't our "Rabid-Radical-Religious-Right" railed against this "paganism"?

Why hasn't the "Family Research Council" made even a token attempt to "Christianize" the days of the week?

Let's say, something like, Maryday, Trinityday, Lukeday, Markday, Peterday, Jesusday, God-day. Of course, you can use Paulday instead of any of the others.

Of course, then they would also start a movement against so many of our "Cherished Christian Holidays", and many of the holiday "traditions" -- like the "Yule Log", "Christmas Tree", "Easter Bunny", "Easter Eggs", etc., etc., etc.

Many "Fundamentalist Protestant Churches" opposed "Christmas" -- this from Wikipedia -- "The first documented Christmas controversy was Christian-led, and began during the English Interregnum, when England was ruled by a PuritanParliament.[50]
Puritans sought to remove elements they viewed as "pagan" (because they
were not biblical in origin) from Christianity (see Pre-Christianity
below). In 1647, the Puritan-led English Parliament banned the
celebration of Christmas, replacing it with a day of fasting and
considering it "a popish festival with no biblical justification", and a time of wasteful and immoral behavior"

In addition: " In Colonial America, the Puritans of New England disapproved of Christmas, and celebration was outlawed in Boston from 1659 to 1681.[55] The ban by the Pilgrims was revoked by English governor Edmund Andros, however it was not until the mid-19th century that celebrating Christmas became fashionable in the Boston region.[56] By the Declaration of Independence in 1776, it was not widely celebrated in the US".

The entire "Christmas Controversy" has raged on for many , many years. Most often the entire holiday has been attacked as "Popish" - a Roman Catholic Holiday, not celebrated by many Protestants.

That's only Christmas. How about "Easter"?

Here's a taste: " The modern English term Easter developed from the name for the goddessĒostre, the goddess of fertility. The Old English word Ēastre or Ēostre (IPA: [ˈæːɑstre, ˈeːostre]), which itself developed prior to 899.
Since Grimm's time, linguists have identified the goddess as a Germanic form of the reconstructedProto-Indo-European goddess of the dawn, *Hausos and theories connecting Ēostre with records of Germanic Easter customs (including hares and eggs) have been proposed.".

However, instead of focusing on truly Christian aspects of our world -- these "fundamentalist christians" choose to focus on "Gay" Marriage, equal rights for all people (they oppose them), and all sorts of other insane political crap.

these folks call a CONSERVATIVE Democrat, like Obama, a "Communist". they oppose health insurance that is a boon for the PRIVATE INSURANCE COMPANIES because they seem to see it as "Socialized Medicine".

They oppose ALL Women's Rights. They oppose abortion, contraception, and some even oppose the right of Women to VOTE!!

These folks, who claim such "Godliness" just can't seem to concentrate on their much vaunted "Christianity". It's always about other folks, and how those other folks are to blame for EVERYTHING.

Now for our prayer, we pray that
the women who work in your MFRR and the women in your family will befall
fast moving breast cancer which can not everbe cured. We pray this
for Leah Bruton, and Becki Miller, Patricia Corigan, Chris Rodda, Edie
Disler, Vicky Garrison, Kristin Leslie, Melinda Moeton and Joan Slish.
And you evil clan too, we pray this for Bonnie Wiensten and Amanda and
Amber Wienstein and the woman lawyers Cariline Mitchel and Katherin
Ritchy and all women of all who work at with for Military Freedom
Against Religon Foundation.

The women targeted have nothing to worry about — you can’t get much
more ineffective than sitting around wishing a nonexistent ghost would
afflict your enemies — but the sad thing is that the women in this
prayer group really believe in the efficacy of their magic incantation,
and honestly want other women to suffer horribly from a painful,
disfiguring, and life-threatening disease.
You shall know them by their love. Their blind, hateful, petty love.

Bavaria to publish first German Language edition of "Mein Kampf" since WWII.

This from BBC NEWS - please follow link to original.

Does this mean that since their economic takeover of Europe might be faltering, our dear, good friends, THE GERMANS (bless their hearts), might be thinking of "more traditional" methods? Naa -- couldn't be -- could it?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mein Kampf: Bavaria plans first German publication since WWII

The German state of
Bavaria is preparing to publish Hitler's manifesto, Mein Kampf, in 2015,
before the book's copyright expires.

The book is not banned by law in Germany, but Bavaria has
used ownership of the copyright to prevent publication of German
editions since 1945.
Copyright restrictions stop at the end of 2015, 70 years after Hitler's death.
The Bavarian government says it is preparing an edition for students which will include a critical commentary.
Hitler wrote Mein Kampf (My Struggle) in 1924, while serving a prison sentence for attempting to stage a coup. 'Boring'

Part biography, part political and racist rant, the book outlines the core of Nazi ideology.

It has not appeared in German since the end of World War II
but until 1945 around 10 million copies were sold. The book is available
in translation and on the internet.
After Hitler came to power in 1933 couples were given the book at their wedding, as a present from the Nazi state.
The BBC's Stephen Evans in Berlin says that many readers, not
least the Italian Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, have found the
book boring.'Commercially unattractive'
Bavaria's state finance minister Markus Soeder said the
decision was taken after talks with advocates and opponents of
publication, and explained that it was aimed at "demystifying" the book.
"We want to make clear what nonsense is in there," and to
show "what a worldwide catastrophe this dangerous body of thought led
to".
By publishing in 2015 before the expiry of the copyright,
Bavaria hopes to make future German editions as "commercially
unattractive" as possible.
From 2016 there will be no restrictions at all on the book's publication, unless it is used to incite racial hatred.
The president of Germany's Central Council of Jews, Dieter
Graumann, said he would prefer German citizens to be able to read a copy
with notes of explanation.
Last month a court in Munich ruled that a British publisher, Peter Magee, could not sell extracts of the work in German.
He has said he intends to appeal against that decision.

AND NOW!! --- A visit to "Some Assembly Required" -- please follow link to original
------------------------------------------------------------------

Odd Jobs:
Now that America's Mexican workforce is declining - for the first time
since the Depression - some pundits are worrying over immigration
policis and the Latino vote. A lot of ordinary rich folks are more
concerned with who is going to mow the lawn, polish the car and take
care of the kid. Or shingle the roof.

Fox News Ethics:
Fox co-conspirator Steve Doocy explains that making up things and
claiming Obama said them was not 'misquoting' the President, merely
'paraphrasing' to clarify what the President meant. Focus!
Budget deficits, tax rates, abortion and Social Security bankruptcy
take up the noise out of Washington. But solving the unemployment
problem – even if it is limited to just the 13 million the government
acknowledges - should be number one. Why isn't it? 'Cause nobody's got
the foggiest.

Be Prepared:
"The most important take-away points from the 2012 Trustees Report will
be that Social Security has a large and growing surplus; that without
any Congressional action, Social Security will continue to pay benefits
to America’s eligible working families for decades; and that with modest
legislated increases in revenue, it will continue to pay those benefits
for the next century and beyond."

Stampede: Suddenly everyone knew all along that Keynes was right and austerity was wrong, not only for Europe but for the US, and that austerity has "brought nothing but misery" to Europe - witness the falling GDP numbers.
And - the herd now claims to have known for some time - the US stimulus
was way too small and if the tax increase scheduled for January 2013
isn't killed, the US economy will be. A look back to the previous cycle -
the one that led to the Great Depression - suggests that if we keep
marching down the austerity path we well may end up goose-stepping along.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Time for a rant.
Although I (and many others) have long been critics of Wall Street's
incredibly sleazy, recklessly psychopathic, and relentlessly
self-destructive underbelly, there is another corner of the financial
services industry that seems to have made reprehensible behavior a
cornerstone of its business model.
As the New York Times reports in, "Insurers Alter Cost Formula, and Patients Pay More," the insurance industry seems intent on making Congress look like a bastion of honesty and ethical behavior.

Despite a landmark settlement that was
expected to increase coverage for out-of-network care, the nation’s
largest health insurers have been switching to a new payment method that
in most cases significantly increases the cost to the patient.

The settlement, reached in 2009, followed
New York State’s accusation that the companies manipulated data they
used to price such care, shortchanging the nation’s patients by hundreds
of millions of dollars.

The agreement required the companies to
finance an objective database of doctors’ fees that patients and
insurers nationally could rely on. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, then the
attorney general, said it would increase reimbursements by as much as 28
percent.

It has not turned out that way. Though
the settlement required the companies to underwrite the new database
with $95 million, it did not obligate them to use it. So by the time the
database was finally up and running last year, the same companies,
across the country, were rapidly shifting to another calculation method,
based on Medicare rates, that usually reduces reimbursement
substantially.

“It’s deplorable,” said Chad Glaser, a
sales manager for a seafood company near Buffalo, who learned that he
was facing hundreds of dollars more in out-of-pocket costs for his son’s
checkups with a specialist who had performed a lifesaving liver
transplant. “I could get balance-billed hundreds of thousands of
dollars, and I have no protection.”

That's not the end of it, of course. In fact, all it takes is about
10 minutes of Googling to come up with plenty of other stories about an
industry that apparently feels really good about doing bad:

The last two columns from Robert Reich. Please follow link to original
---------------------------------------------------------

How Europe’s Double Dip Could Become America’s
Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Europe is in recession.
Britain’s Office for National Statistics confirmed today (Wednesday) that in the first quarter of this year Britain’s economy shrank .2 percent, after having contracted .3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011. (Officially, two quarters of shrinkage make a recession). On Monday Spain officially fell into recession, for the second time in three years. Portugal, Italy, and Greece are already basket cases. It seems highly likely France and Germany are also contracting.
Why should we care? Because a recession in the world’s third-largest economy, combined with the current slowdown in the world’s second-largest (China), spells trouble for the world’s largest.
Remember – it’s a global economy. Money moves across borders at the speed of an electronic impulse. Wall Street banks are enmeshed into a global capital network extending from Frankfurt to Beijing. That means that notwithstanding their efforts to dress up balance sheets, the biggest U.S. banks are more fragile than they’ve been at any time since 2007.
Meanwhile, goods and services slosh across the globe. If there’s not enough demand for them coming from the second and third-largest economies in the world, demand in the U.S. can’t possibly make up the difference. That could mean higher unemployment here as well as elsewhere.
What’s the problem with Europe? Don’t blame it on the so-called “debt crisis.” There was no debt crisis in Britain, for example, which is now experiencing its first double-dip recession since the 1970s.
Blame it on austerity economics – the bizarre view that economic slowdowns are the products of excessive debt, so government should cut spending. Germany’s insistence on cutting public budgets has led Europe into a recession swamp.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has led the austerity charge, and other European policy makers who have followed her, have forgotten two critical lessons.
First, that the real issue isn’t debt per se but the ratio of the debt to the size of the economy.
In their haste to cut the public debt, Europeans have overlooked the denominator of the equation. By reducing public budgets they’ve removed a critical source of demand — at a time when consumers and the private sector are still in the gravitational pull of the Great Recession and can’t make up the difference. The obvious result is a massive slowdown that has worsened the ratio of Europe’s debt to its total GDP, and is plunging the continent into recession.
A large debt with faster growth is preferable to a smaller debt sitting atop no growth at all. And it’s infinitely better than a smaller debt on top of a contracting economy.
The second lesson Merkel and others have overlooked is that the social costs of austerity economics can be huge. It’s one thing to cut a government budget when unemployment is low and wages are rising. But if you cut spending during a time of high unemployment and stagnant or declining wages, you’re not only causing unemployment to rise even further. You’re also removing the public services and safety nets people depend on, especially when times are tough.
And with high social costs comes political upheaval. On Monday, Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte was forced to resign. U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron is on the ropes. The upcoming election in France is now a tossup – incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy might well be unseated by Francois Hollande, a Socialist. European fringe parties on the left and the right are gaining ground. Across Europe, record numbers of young people are unemployed – including many recent college graduates – and their anger and frustration is adding to the upheaval.
Social and political instability is itself a drag on growth, generating even more uncertainty about the future.
What European policy makers should do is set a target for growth and unemployment — and continue to increase government spending until those targets are met. Only then should they adopt austerity.
What are the chances that Merkel et al will see the light before Europe plunges into an even deeper recession? Approximately zero.
The danger here for the United States is clear, but there’s also a clear lesson. Republicans have become the U.S. party of Angela Merkel, demanding and getting spending cuts at the worst possible time – and ignoring the economic and social consequences.
Even if the U.S. economy (as well as President Obama’s reelection campaign) survives the global slowdown, we’re heading for a big dose of austerity economics next January – when drastic spending cuts are scheduled to kick in, as well as tax increases on the middle class. But the U.S. economy isn’t nearly healthy enough to bear this burden.
If nothing is done to reverse course in the interim, we’ll be following Europe into a double dip.

Why Anyone Should Care that Bill O’Reilly Calls Me A Communist

Monday, April 23, 2012
Bill O’Reilly, the tumescent personality of Fox News, said on his Friday show “Robert Reich is a communist who secretly adores Karl Marx.” (This came after Fox News’ Neil Cavoto called me a “sanctimonious twit” for suggesting the rich should pay more in taxes.)
O’Reilly’s accusation is odd, to say the least. If we were living in the 1950s, amid Senator Joe McCarthy’s communist witch-hunts, the claim might have some bite and cause me injury. But these days it’s hard to find a full-throated communist anywhere in the world.
O’Reilly’s accusation isn’t even logical. How can he know if I secretly adore Karl Marx, if it’s a secret?
For the record, I’m not a communist and I don’t secretly adore Karl Marx.
Ordinarily I don’t bother repeating anything Bill O’Reilly says. But this particular whopper is significant because it represents what O’Reilly and Fox News, among others, are doing to the national dialogue.
They’re burying it in doo-doo.
O’Reilly based his claim on an interview I did last week with Jon Stewart on the Daily Show, in which I argued that because America’s big corporations were now global we could no longer rely on them to make necessary investments in human capital or to lobby for public investments in education, infrastructure, and basic R&D. So, logically, government has to step in.
Since when does an argument for public investment in education, infrastructure, and basic R&D make someone a communist or a secret adorer of Karl Marx?
Obviously, O’Reilly has no interest in arguing anything. Ad hominem attacks are always the last refuges of intellectual boors lacking any logic or argument. (Whoops, I think I just stooped to name-calling. Sorry, Bill.)
Yet this is what’s happening to all debate all over America: It’s disappearing. All we’re left with is a nasty residue.
In Washington, Democrats and Republicans no longer even talk. They just vent charges and counter-charges.
The 2012 election doesn’t seem likely to clarify any issue. At this moment the candidates and their surrogates are debating the treatment of dogs.
Across the nation, conservatives right-wingers and liberal or progressive lefties have stopped debating their respective views, or even listening to anyone they disagree with. They just find broadcasters and bloggers who confirm their views.
We’re even sorting by belief according to where we live. Today your neighbors are more likely to agree with your politics than disagree. We’ve settled into like-minded enclaves where we don’t need to think because everyone we meet confirms what we assume we already know.
It’s not that the nation is more polarized than it’s been in the past. America has been through searing conflicts, some within the living memories of most of us. The communist witch-hunts of the 1950s were followed by the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, battles over womens’ reproductive rights and gay marriage.
What makes America’s current polarization remarkable isn’t the severity of our disagreements but our utter lack of engagement debating them.
So many Americans are so angry and frustrated these days – vulnerable to loss of job and healthcare and home, without a shred of economic security – they’re easy prey for demagogues offering simple answers and ready scapegoats. Take, for example, Bill O’Reilly and his colleagues at Fox News.
But people can only learn from others who disagree with them — or at least from witnessing debates between people who respectfully and civilly disagree. Without respect and civility, it’s not a debate – it’s just name-calling.
A democracy depends on public deliberation and debate. Without it, the members of a society have no means of understanding what they believe or why. The Lincoln-Douglas debates were notable not because they solved anything but because they helped Americans clarify where they agreed and disagreed on the wrenching issue of slavery.
Hence the danger today – when deliberation has stopped.
This morning I left a message on Bill O’Reilly’s office phone asking him to invite me onto his show to debate whether public investments in education and infrastructure are needed.
What are the odds he’ll invite me on?

About Me

I'm just another old woman who has had wide ranging interests for a long time,
These include fishing, shooting, reading, cooking, and all manner of (mostly) left wing politics.
Born and bred in New York - Queens, to be precise - I now live in Texas, another state that folks seem to attack (like N.Y.) without ever having been here.
I'm also a fan of most sports -- esp. baseball, esp. the New York Yankees.
Originally a New York Giants (baseball) fan, I was crushed when they moved. It took many years wandering in the wilderness before I returned to baseball. I's all Wade Boggs fault. When I watched that artist, my love for baseball resurfaced. Since he was then a Yankee -- it had to be the Yankees.
The Mets pretended they had spiritual ties to the old Brooklyn Dodgers - no Giant fan could go there.
I tried - couldn't do it.